KARACHI: With a band around their waists that connects to a big lever with a heavy brick or rock at the other end, Mohammad Arif and Mohammad Hanif go round and round to extract oil from the almonds being ground in the middle. Extracting one litre of oil means going round and round for half an hour at least, explains their brother Mohammad Javed.

They can extract oil from just about anything be it amla , almond, coconut, kalonji (nigella seeds) or alsi (linseed), mustard seed, pumpkin seed, sesame seed, fennel seed or coriander seed and they have been running this family business for over 100 years in places like Empress Market, Lalukhet, Mithadar, Malir and Allama Iqbal Road in Karachi.

At Empress Market, there are some four oil presses manned by four cousins. “This is our family business. Our maternal and paternal grandfathers also extracted oil manually and we have inherited this art from them,” says Abdul Razzak, who has bottles of oils in different colours and hues all around on his press.

The presses are all pretty much identical. Made of wood and steel with wheels, they seem quite basic and old-style. Perhaps they, too, have been handed down through the generations. “Basic or old, they work well to extract pure oil. Our grandfathers used to do it for the British and Arabs in these very markets right here and we do the same for you all now,” Razzak beams.

“Oil can cure so many ailments and extracting pure oil isn’t cheap. Our grandfathers charged eight annas for a litre back in their day but that isn’t the case anymore. For instance, for a litre of almond oil, you’ll need some two-and-a-half kilograms of almonds, which will cost you around Rs1,200. Then I will also charge something like Rs200 for my services. So you’ll have a litre of almond oil for Rs1,400.

“It is cold pressed but if you want the regular oil sold in the shops, it’s all machine pressed and heated which does away with several nutrients in the oil,” he explains. “You can also have oil extracted by the machine presses yourself as there are several of those in Shershah,” he adds.

“Most people here want almond or coconut oil because these are readily available right here in the market. Amla , kalonji and charmagaz [mixed melon seeds] oil is also popular,” says Javed gesturing to the dark green, black and colourless oils in various glass bottles lined up on his press.

“All oil usually comes out colourless. It is we who add colour to it, actually,” Javed explains while picking up a bottle of oil that’s bright red. “It’s coriander seed oil,” he says. “Similarly, we give amla oil a dark green colour. And bitter almond oil, a dark yellow hue just to set them all apart from each other.

Just then a young boy on his bicycle approaches Razzak for some coconut and linseed oil. “It’s for my grandmother, who wouldn’t settle for anything less than khalis [pure],” says the boy who introduces himself as Waqas.

“It’s so expensive that I can only get her this much,” he adds showing the two small brown bottles he has just bought from Razzak. “The alsi oil is for some relief from her own joint pain, as she suffers from arthritis, and the coconut oil is for me. My grandmother says that I need a good scalp massage so that I can do well in my exams,” he shares laughing before pedalling off.